I grew up thinking I’m an eighth Irish, through my great-grandmother Mary Norris. But my genealogy research has since revealed that I’m only 1/16th Irish—Mary’s father was from Ireland, but her mother was German.

And this little guy is 1/32nd Irish:

So this St. Patrick’s Day, Leo and I will have to make the most of our respective slivers of Irishness.

Whether you're a lot or a little Irish, you share heritage with the second-largest heritage group in the United States. Here are some more stats:

50,000 to 100,000 Irish came to America in the 1600s, and 100,000 more in the 1700s. Eight signatures on the Declaration of Independence belonged to men of Irish descent.

In the American colonies, up to 90 percent of indentured servants were Irish.

About 250,000 Scots-Irish settlers from Ulster province arrived in the United States during the Colonial era. They were descended from Scottish and English tenant farmers settled in Ireland during the Plantation of Ulster.

In the century after 1820, about 5 million Irish arrived on US shores. Irish made up almost half of all US immigrants in the 1840s and one-third in the 1850s, the decades of the Great Potato Famine.

Today, Massachusetts is the most Irish state, with about a quarter of the population claiming Irish roots.

FamilyTreeMagazine.com has some great advice for tracing your Irish roots:

Family Tree Magazine publisher Allison Dolan will share key facts about censuses, where to find free census records and what to expect when the 1940 census is released. She'll also show you how to use the major online collections to find your ancestors, using real examples from webinar viewers to demo census search strategies.

In addition to hearing fascinating tales of participants' old family homes with kitchens constructed from peach crates, cheese packaging used for insulation and old newpapers as wallpaper, I got tips for researching the cigar store and other ancestral homes, such as my great-grandparents':

And I smuggled some tips from the chat to share with you all! (The conference participants can download chat transcripts to keep.) Here they are:

If the house is relatively new, Marian suggests starting with deed research. "I've researched every house I've lived in, even one built in 1985," she typed.

Start with the book and page number of the property deed in county or town records. Many areas have property assessor records online, where you can search by address. Then you'll trace the deeds to find out names of the
previous owners.

City directories are a great tool for house history research, especially for multifamily dwellings or those with with renters.

You can get a historical contractor to walk through your house and
'read' it. "That is your best shot for knowing when the various parts
were built," Marian suggests.

One participant asked whether it's possible to research a house that's been torn down. "Absolutely," Marian replied. "The deeds and tax records never disappear (well unless
there's a fire in the courthouse or something)."

In this episode, former Pittsburgh Steelers player Jerome Bettis visits Kentucky to learn about his mom’s roots. He didn’t trace as many generations as in some other episodes, but I liked the attention spent on each person.

Bettis, an African-American, turned to newspapers for details not documented in official records. He found references to court cases for his great-grandfather being struck by his boss, and in a separate incident, his great-great-grandfather being hit by a train.

The deck was stacked against each man in his case, but Bettis discovered in court records that his great-great-grandfather Abe Bogard won his complaint against the Illinois Central Railroad. Bettis actually got to talk to someone who remembered hearing about the case from men employed by the railroad at the time.

One of my favorite aspects of this episode was the way a Western Kentucky University history professor showed Bettis how to trace his family into slavery. Presuming that the name Bogard was taken from a former owner, Bettis found a white Bogard family in the area and checked will records and slave dower lists (reports of slaves women had inherited).

They found a Jerry and Eliza, with a son Abe. I can’t imagine the feeling that would hit you when you see a record showing that your family members were owned by other people, and monetary values placed on their heads.

The owner, Joseph Bogard, willed Bettis’ ancestors to his wife. After she died, Abe and his parents were sold off to separate owners. The good news is that the 1870 census, the first US census to name former slaves, showed the family was reunited.

Ancestry.com, along with United Vacations and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, is holding a sweepstakes to coincide with the DVD release of the movie The Descendants. (I have to admit I'm not much of a moviegoer, so I don't know whether The Descendants has anything to do with genealogy, but I do know George Clooney is in it.)

Prizes include a "glamping" (glamorous camping) trip to Hawaii, a year-long Ancestry.com membership and The Descendants on Blu-ray. Click here to enter.

FamilySearch.org added 31 million new, free records this past week for Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Hungary, Italy, Micronesia, New Zealand, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Russia and the United States. Those with California roots, in particular, will appreciate the more than 24 million Golden State birth records dating from 1905 to 1995. See the full list of updated records and link to each collection here.

March is Women’s History Month, so let's seize the opportunity to talk about finding women ancestors. Learning their maiden names can be a big problem, especially when you're researching before the era of consistent vital records.

For me, birth and death records, when they're available, have been a source of maiden names. Carefully examining census records also has helped: In two cases, I've found a female ancestor's elderly mother or father living in the daughter's household.

Here's a roundup of free FamilyTreeMagazine.com articles that focus on finding women ancestors:

Wondering what this Virtual Conference thing is? I'll tell you: It's an opportunity to improve your genealogy skills and network with other researchers while hanging out at home in your pajamas (or at the coffee shop, let's hope in your regular clothes).

You'll log in anytime during the weekend to watch video classes, participate in live chats, visit our virtual exhibit hall and pick up your swag bag.

We've got 15 video classes to choose from. Some of them are:

Using Steve Morse’s One-Step Site to Get Ready for the 1940 Census with Thomas MacEntee

Using Your iPad for Genealogy with Nancy Hendrickson

What’s in a Civil War Pension File? with Diana Crisman Smith

Using Guardianship Records in Genealogical Research with Marian Pierre-Louis

Friday’s “Who Do You Think You Are?” was pre-empted around here due to coverage of the severe weather Friday. Our immediate area was lucky to come through unscathed. Not so for many of our neighboring communities, and our hearts go out to those people.

One theme is McEntire’s discovery of her family’s slave-owning past. When she’s confronted with her fourth-great-grandfather’s life as a slave trader, I like what the archivist says, that slavery is part of all of our histories.

Later, she learns the same ancestor’s grandfather (McEntire’s sixth-great-grandfather) came to the country as a 9-year-old indentured servant. He was one of the fewer than half of all indentured servants who lived long enough to become free citizens—and became successful enough to purchase land.

When she learned the boy’s father put him on the ship, McEntire cautions herself against drawing early conclusions. Good for her: Before making judgments about an ancestor’s actions, it’s a good idea to learn the context of their lives.

I like the variety of records used in this episode (though we didn’t see where Josh found his information). Censuses, obituaries, land records, tax records, newspapers (she used GenealogyBank at the Granville County courthouse, but they didn’t show the name of the site), slave bills of sale, deeds, baptismal registers and more.